


Whatever Makes You Happy (Five Purims)

by Hagar



Category: NCIS
Genre: 5 Times, Canon Jewish Character, Childhood, Collection: Purimgifts Day 1, Community: purimgifts, Father-Daughter Relationship, Gen, Mother-Daughter Relationship, POV Female Character, POV Jewish Character, Purim, Quintuple Drabble
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-22
Updated: 2013-02-22
Packaged: 2017-12-03 06:04:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/695016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hagar/pseuds/Hagar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five identities Ziva wore on Purim.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Whatever Makes You Happy (Five Purims)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ariestess](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ariestess/gifts).



When Ziva is in kindergarten, she dresses like an Indian on Purim. A year before her mother dressed her in a baby’s ladybug costume still but that year Ziva is five, and she has a mind of her own. Her father, surprisingly, helps; they spend an afternoon together with him cutting jute and sewing it and her gluing fake feathers to make a headdress. Mom clucked her tongue and forbade Tali to go outside to the porch where they were working.

Years later, in the wake of her mother’s death, Ziva would find the tiny Indian costume among her things.

 

* * *

  
In third grade Ziva goes to school as a ballerina. To her father’s frown she replies that it is not really a costume; she’s wearing her ballet dress. Her mother, though, is ecstatic. Ballet is graceful, the clothes white and baby-pink. She wraps Ziva’s hair in a bun and applies more pins than strictly necessary. Glitter from Tali’s fairy costume sticks to their mother’s hands, and transfers to Ziva’s hair. The teacher compliments Ziva on it; it looks like part of the costume.

Ziva doesn’t care, not about that. What she cares about is that her parents do not fight.

 

* * *

 

When Ziva is fourteen she goes to school as a boy. A lot of boys go as girls, flaunting their wigs, their tacky lipstick and their hairy legs. They compare the items used to fill up their bras. Ziva is the only girl dressed as a boy. A loose shirt hides breasts too small for even the tiniest bra, and a funny hat keeps her hair tucked in. She keeps her head down to help hide her face, which is her only distinctively girly feature.

People startle at her costume. The more they do, the higher she holds her head.

 

* * *

 

By high school Ziva announces Purim foolish and childish and won’t dress up at all, won’t even paint her face or wear a funny hat. She does so for two years. On the third year she steals her father’s B-dress uniform and borrows Tali’s black Doc Martens. The only sufficiently realistic toy gun she finds is a handgun, so she makes a pair of officer’s B-dress rank epaulettes. Her mom is furious, of course. Only her dad is in on the joke: already tracked to enter Mossad training in her compulsory service period, Ziva will technically never be a soldier.

 

* * *

 

On her first Purim at NCIS Ziva dresses as an American, in a skirt suit, kitten heels, makeup, and her hair done up. Gibbs frowns and says nothing; Tony is horrible as expected; McGee never notices; and Abby says that it becomes her. Ziva suppresses a snarl and thinks this worse than eighth grade.

In the afternoon she goes down to Autopsy. Palmer blushes then flees the room at her glare. Ducky seems oblivious, until he hands her the report and says: “I was under the impression that on Purim, one is supposed to do things that make one happy.”

 

* * *

 

 


End file.
